Courant Carrier Raymond P. Greene

Raymond Greene, 89, delivered the Hartford Courant in New Britain in the late 1930's.

Raymond Greene, 89, delivered the Hartford Courant in New Britain in the late 1930's. (Brad Horrigan, 20140925\B584039382Z.1)

In his words: Raymond P. Greene, New Britain

"My paperboy days" is one of the chapters of a memoir that I wrote, "Born with the Gift of Laughter," to show my children what it was like to grow up during the Great Depression.

I always enjoyed having a few cents in my pocket and wasn't afraid to work for it. At 13, I became a Hartford Courant carrier. The job entailed very early rising; the route had to be completed before 6 a.m. I took over the route from a real go-getter named John Evans. When I took over the route, he had built it up to over 100 daily customers and 130 some-odd customers on Sunday. That was just the beginning of a very tough schedule. I had the further misfortune of having "Old Man Dailey," the Courant's New Britain circulation manager, on my list of customers. He was a holy terror to all of the delivery boys! He insisted on that paper being on his doorstep before 6 a.m. and also his paper be delivered last on my route. If I overslept (which was fairly often), I would hide my papers and deliver his on time, along with his neighbor's paper. Then I would finish that huge route. We had many good-sized snowstorms in the late '30s. Breaking through waist deep snow to deliver the news isn't something you forget. But Old Man Dailey's dictum was that if the papers were delivered to the pickup spot on time, we carriers had to deliver them on time. I still remember climbing over trees to get the papers delivered during the '38 hurricane. I think every poplar tree in Connecticut went down in that one.

That paper route was really a blessing. It got me up and at it early every morning, it made me a morning person. Now, 75 years later, I still wake up before dawn. It gave me a work ethic that has become part of my life. It also gave me an insight into the people on the route. There was the dentist's wife who was always "bombed" when I came to collect on Saturday morning. She could never find her purse, and while I waited in the hallway she would be turning cushions on the sofa and finding empty bottles instead. Still, she was a lovely woman and would always give me a tip and a smile. Who knows what private demons were stalking her? Another of my customers, Mrs. Culley, lost her 10-year-old son to diphtheria while I had the route. I'll never forget how she looked at me when I came to collect that week. A paper route sometimes gives you more experience than you really want.

One more thing that I can thank my Hartford Courant carrier days for was that they opened the door for an odd-job route that I established. You got to see whose lawn needed mowing, whose garbage needed cleaning and who needed help with their storm windows and screens. There was always work for an enterprising kid who didn't mind getting his hands dirty. You had to be polite, do the work you were hired to do and be honest to a fault. Thank you, Hartford Courant, for helping to instill those virtues in me at that early age.

About Raymond Greene

After his paperboy work ended at age 16, Greene worked at a grocery in New Britain, dropped out of high school, enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was an aviation radio man during World War II. He flew in combat, including during the battle of Iwo Jima. He earned his GED in the military, married, worked as a commercial artist then worked in a tool-and-die factory because the money was better for his family, which would grow to seven children. He went to Central Connecticut State University, graduated and became an English teacher in Middletown public schools for 24 years. He also taught ad design part-time at CCSU for 21 years.

At age 60, Greene decided to learn Gaelic. He became fluent, teaches the language sometimes in New York City and gives Irish music groups lessons on how to pronounce the Gaelic names. He also is a member of a storytelling group called Hither and Yon and performs in Down East Maine, Scottish and other dialects.

For years, he ran marathons. He estimated that he finished about 80. The last race he ran was the 2013 Manchester Road Race, his 37th run in that annual Thanksgiving event. He said his children insist that he should enter it one more time this fall. He may.

"I've had a lot of different careers and it goes back to the lessons I learned delivering the newspaper," said Greene, who is now 89. "It taught me a lot. Being responsible. The importance of working. How to connect with people. I learned about life and that you do not live forever."